The Regional Shared Health Information Program (Alberta, Canada) Teams with MEDITECH for Province-Wide Integration

The Regional Shared Health Information Program (RSHIP) has signed a contract with Medical Information Technology, Inc. (MEDITECH), Westwood, MA, to cooperatively determine an I.S. implementation strategy which adopts common standards, with the goal of improving the quality of patient care, sharing information where appropriate, and maximizing resources throughout the province. The terms of this agreement will reach over 100 facilities and over 6,000 beds encompassing acute care, continuing care, and public health needs across seven of the nine Health Regions in Alberta. These seven rural regions are responsible for delivering patient care to more than one million Albertans.

"Alberta is working to harness the power of technology to deliver better health care across the province," says Gary Mar, minister of Alberta Health and Wellness. "The Regional Shared Health Information Program and Electronic Health Record are forging networks of partnership as well as information. The relationship with MEDITECH is an example of such an alliance."

"MEDITECH is excited to partner with the Alberta Regional Health Authorities and the Ministry of Health. Though similar initiatives have been implemented in other Canadian provinces, none has matched the scope and magnitude of this common HCIS initiative," states Howard Messing, MEDITECH president and COO. "This is truly a ground-breaking agreement. The MEDITECH system will allow the RSHIP to realize the goal of a shared Electronic Health Record while creating a foundation for alignment with Provincial and Pan-Canadian initiatives for sharing of health information."

The members of this Regional Shared Health Information Program are: Chinook Health Region, Palliser Health Region, David Thompson Health Region, East Central Health, Aspen Regional Health Authority, Peace Country Health, and Northern Lights Health Region. MEDITECH and its partner JJWild (Canton, MA), which will be providing project management services for RSHIP, are working in collaboration with representatives from these individual regions, along with Alberta Health and Wellness. The goal is to create an I.T. infrastructure that will maximize the benefits of health care information systems among both the individual regions and across the province as a whole. All seven regions are expected to be LIVE with MEDITECH's HCIS within the next 3-5 years using a collaborative effort to first establish standards, followed by a phased implementation approach.

MEDITECH's integrated software was a logical choice for the province, as it has demonstrated success with similar large-scale Canadian implementations at sites such as Interior Health Authority and Fraser Health (British Columbia), the District Health Authorities of Nova Scotia, and the Provinces of New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. MEDITECH entered the running for the RSHIP business with the backing of current customers and provincial members, Chinook Health Region and Peace Country Health Region. "We've already been using MEDITECH and are successfully integrating and establishing information and standards among our facilities," states Gil Tourigny, CEO of the Chinook Health Region.

The partnership between RSHIP and MEDITECH aligns with provincial and Canada Health Infoway Pan-Canadian initiatives, including the effort to achieve a shared Electronic Health Record (EHR) across all seven authorities. A shared EHR will grant caregivers regional, and eventually province-wide, access to a single patient-centric record, lending itself to the expansion of resources and improved patient care. "Accuracy, efficiency, and the ability to save money by making better business decisions are just some of the benefits that our regions, and the province as a whole, can expect to experience with a shared EHR," says Tourigny.

Each Regional Health Authority will maintain autonomous clinical and financial applications, which will be integrated at a regional level. Hardware for all seven regions will be hosted at a shared data center in Red Deer, an approach which is expected to save the health care regions millions of dollars over the seven-year implementation phase. "We have a great deal of experience managing shared data centers for multi-entity organizations across North America, and our Corporate Management Software is a unique application specifically designed to meet the needs of a shared data center approach," says Alan Goldstein, MEDITECH director of marketing for Canada.

A shared Data Repository for the entire province will provide improved reporting capabilities, resulting in enhanced clinical decision support and better business decisions. "With these regions currently running disparate systems, they have been unable to compile clinical and financial information to meet provincial reporting standards," comments Greg Hoeft, MEDITECH sales director for Canada. "Furthermore, disparate systems are not aligned with the government's initiative for health care organizations to share integrated and coordinated patient demographic and clinical care information."

"An unprecedented level of collaboration has been demonstrated by these Alberta regions, and it's likely that this project will be used as a future blueprint for additional provinces," says Goldstein. "To select a common integrated health information system, with consensus on a shared data centre delivery model, represents a level of voluntary cooperation previously unseen in North America."

 

About the Regional Shared Health Information Program
The Regional Shared Health Information Program (Alberta, Canada) includes seven of the nine health regions in the province: Chinook Health Region, Palliser Health Region, David Thompson Health Region, East Central Health, Aspen Regional Health Authority, Peace Country Health, and the Northern Lights Health Region. Collectively, the partners provide health services to a geographic area covering over 90% of Alberta. RSHIP's ultimate goal is to create an I.T. infrastructure to maximize the benefits of health care information systems among both the individual regions and across the province as a whole.